Guide 3.6 Match-Up Thread

[Zerudahime]

As a quality check statement, I play with a high-level Zelda (Face) very regularly. IMO, Face is on the same level as Zhime and he has some high-profile wins (Poob, Almighty, Malachi, etc.) under his belt. We go back and forth a lot and this is one MU we've played a ton.

same level? I dont think so.
Face is great, but you really must not know what im capable of.

 

[JOE!]

Ok, to get discussion moving along here I'd like to propose we talk about the extremes first. I think we all agree Zard has no worse MUs than a 40/60 and conversely doesn't stomp anyone harder than 60/40, however what Mus fall under that?

 

[bubbaking]

Meh, I don't necessarily agree with that. I personally think Zard is quite bad this patch (quite the opposite of when I thought he was upper-mid or high tier last patch), and he has a few 35-65 MUs. Regardless, if we're just gonna talk extremes, I think his worst MUs are probably Sheilda, Fox, and possibly Falcon.

same level? I dont think so.
Face is great, but you really must not know what im capable of.

Don't take it the wrong way. I certainly think you're one of the best and definitely more experienced, but I personally think Face has a few facets of his play that are better. Not trying to get anything started, though. As I said, that was just a quality check statement. I'm ultimately here to talk about Zard's MUs.

@Ivy: edgeguarding ivy has gotten alot easier (=doable), but ivy still has options. (hanging as long as possible to force charizard off the edge for example)
the neutral game is horrible in my opinion, the leaf just covers to much and approaching from above isn't a good idea against the vines.
so yeah, i think ivy has a favorable matchup. she gets to dictate the action.

I haven't done this MU much. The last Ivy I played was DarkBlues, whom I beat in a MM with Zard, but that was 3.02. However, it didn't seem that bad. Personally, I thought Zard kinda destroyed Ivy in 3.02, but if the general opinion was that Ivy messed up Zard, then fine. Can't Zard just attack thru Ivy's leaves a la Samus' missiles? In any case, if Ivy tries to hang to avoid getting edgeguarded, that seems like an open invitation to ledgedrop n/bair her. I've even even just daired her out of her tether before she got the chance to reel in.

@bowser: downthrow techchasing doesn't really work against bowser. Neutral tech to DownB is terribly hard to deal with and makes it one heck of a guessing game. It's been a while since I played a good bowser, but i think this is still unchanged. If you want insight on bowser vs Charizard, ask Ace or look for his old posts on here. (He mains Bowser, used to play charizard, great player!)

This is true. If you guess the neutral tech, you can preemptively jab or grab, but you need to get the read. Side techs are super easy to react to, though. However, it is extremely easy to punish Bowser's Whirling Fortress on shield unless he can reach the ledge, and you can hit him out of the later part of the move if he isn't quick about it. The real issue is that, once you start to respect neutral tech upB, he can just do things like jab > Klaw. Personally, I prefer to bthrow Bowser. On DI away, it combos into DA, and on other DIs, it combos into usmash or fair. DI away by the ledge puts him in a really bad position, and he's kinda free to edgeguard. I agree with a slight advantage for us over Bowser.

i'm not sure if DDD isn't a more favorable matchup though. easy edgeguards and easy combos... what does DDD have? waddledee's that are terribly easy to shield through (dash->shield->wavedash)?

I could see this being even. DDD also gets really good combos and edgeguard options on us, and his tech-chase game is almost as good. It's actually not as easy to edgeguard DDD as you think. He can chase us away from the immediate vicinity with fairs, and he can gain a lot of distance (and a covering hitbox) with Waddle AGT. It's also not easy to juggle DDD since he has dair (which leads into combos or grounded mix-ups if it hits) and FF Inhale, and he can easily poke at us from below our nair with his own uair.

L_Pag left us for DDD, but his DDD is definitely no slouch. He showed me a thing a or two at some tournaments.

 

[JOE!]

Who do we lose to 35/65 in your opinion? We definitely have losing MUs (like Fox), but I personally dont think we have anything worse than a 40/60

 

[Life]

Matchup discussion is one of the few places I prefer words to numbers.

I think the distinction between 35-65, 40-60, 45-55 etc is entirely arbitrary and just leads to pointless bickering where people mean the same thing with different numbers. I know they're supposed to represent win/loss ratios or something along those lines, but really, does anyone ACTUALLY have the data for matchup W/L? Especially given that the best Charizard (whoever that is) and the best, I dunno, pick an arbitrary obscure character like Ness or Kirby, have probably never met? How are we supposed to tell which matches reflect matchup advantage/disadvantage and which ones reflect who's simply the better player?

Semantic rant aside, I pretty much agree: I don't think Charizard has any unwinnable matchups, though some are pretty hard. Yeah.

 

[bubbaking]

Personally, I prefer the 7-point scale system (+/-3). You shouldn't really try to relate a 7-point (or any #-point) scale system to a ratio system, but if I had to try, I'd say 55:45 generally fits under +1, 60:40 to 65:35 generally fits under +2, and anything worse fits under +3. However, the real reason I like the 7-point scale system is that talking in terms of ratios is actually very misleading and/or hard to agree on. It's much easier to agree on general degrees of advantage/disadvantage. In that regard, then yes, I don't think Zard has any MU worse than a -2. MUs I'd put in that category (that I also personally believe are 65:35) are Sheik and Fox. TL and Falcon are potentially in there too.

IMO it's even. That said, I think other Zards like it because Marth's recovery is fairly straightforward, so edgeguarding it is no huge issue; because Marth isn't super hard to juggle, another Zard strength; and because Zard has a reach advantage AFAICT, which is unusual for Marth mains to have to deal with.

Meh...I personally think Zard:Marth is somewhere between even and slightly Marth's favor. Zard really is combo food for Marth, and while it's true that Zard's range matches Marth's, his disjoints definitely don't. The PMBRDT removed the head invincibility from Zard's ftilt, so it's easier for Marth to beat Zard in spacing battles. With the nair nerf, it's also a LOT easier for Marth to juggle Zard with utilt/air. Zard might be faster than Marth (?), but Marth still has better overall mobility and more accessible quick aerials. We're easier to gimp now, too.

Haven't played any Zard mains in a while, but I was wondering if the Zard-Falcon matchup is as tough for falcon as it was in 3.0.
Falcon has a tough time getting around Zard's anti-air options (jesus christ that jab), gets tech chased for free, gets comboed hard, and generally has to respect charizard's space if he doesn't want to die.
Is the matchup any different in 3.5?

Nah, I think this MU is real tough for Zard now. True, both chars combo each other to death. If Zard bthrows Falcon (or knocks him down in pretty much any way), all he has to do is run to his landing point and immediately dsmash because it covers all tech options for free, and Falcon is easy to edgeguard, but Falcon's speed is a big issue. Just throwing out moves, like jab, lets him DD around and in, and a nerfed nair makes it really hard to catch him with things like RAR nair. Zard is pretty linear, so he struggles a lot against characters faster than him (Sheik, Fox, Falcon).

 

[JOE!]

+/- X works too, And to keep it short due to mobile: zard is only slower than Fox/Falcon/Sonic

 

[bubbaking]

I'm not trying to contradict you, but are you accounting for both initial dash and run speed? Also, I'd say Sheik at least has better vertical and platform mobility, which can mean a lot.

To bring up another MU from the OP, I personally feel we still beat ROB (+1) or at least go even. Back in 3.02, I know JC and myself both felt that Zard solidly won the MU. Back then, I played both sides of the MU frequently: Zard against JC and Bstuk (and any other random ROBs I encountered) and a lot of ROB against John Numbers (and Aposl). We pretty much all came to that conclusion. Bring in 3.5 and both characters got nerfed, and both chars actually got notable nerfs in the recovery department. Zard still juggles ROB pretty well, although nair isn't such a MU-breaking move now. ROB's boost and ledge changes (can no longer boost AD and his ledge sweetspot is a lot higher up) also makes him fairly easy to edgeguard. Unless he goes high, he's super easy to dtilt or flamethrower, and if he goes high, he has to worry about being juggled. That being said, I can see the MU being even because now Zard can kinda be juggled and edgeguarded fairly easily by ROB too.
Currently, I've spoken to and played the other local decent ROBs, @Dandizzle and @Rubba Prime, and they also feel that Zard slightly wins this MU. I definitely think it's not far off from even this patch, though. Nair, flamethrower, and glide nerfs really evened out the playing field.

*Zen just got back into PM so we might get to see some *Zen vs Leon action soon and I want to be able to give proper commentary of that when it happens since they're the two best French players by a margin.
Could somebody explain to me how the matchup goes ? I've seen *Zen vs Prof Pro this summer in person but I'd like to know more.
From my understanding, the reasons Charizard loses it are :
-what makes Charizard work is that he's a fatty with a good recovery, which lets him actually profit of his heavy weight (unlike Bowser/DK) and have superior survivability compared to the rest of the cast. But Snake doesn't care about that, because he mostly kills from the top, not the side or by edgeguarding.
-Charizard likes platform camping (*Zen especially), but that simply doesn't work against Snake because he can use the opportunity to plant a C4 through your shield, or use the upB land cancel grab technique, or use projectiles to put on some pressure from a place that your nair won't hit. He's also able to crouch under your platform nairs, which is worth noting I guess.
-Charizard still has a couple strengths : Snake doesn't seem to enjoy characters with a lot of range and movement speed, and Charizard has a lot of that. They counter his projectiles too well by being able to blow them up without trading 10% in the process. Charizard kills from the top and the sides, mostly, I mean he can edgeguard with nair but that's not something he actually has to rely on, so Snake's Infinite recovery doesn't make you too angry from what I can tell.

I need more details though, such as what stages you would tend to ban/CP, in example.

John Numbers and I have played this MU with Rolex a ton. I believe GHZ is a good CP for Zard. It's pretty hard for Snake to stay out of Zard's optimal range, and it's really hard for him to get down once he's being juggled. That was also the stage where Numbers 4-stocked him. As for Snake's "infinite recovery", you don't actually have to wait to kill Snake off the top or sides. Get him offstage and you can just dair him through his Cipher. You can go as low or far out as you want because the dair always hits through the cipher but then gets interrupted by Zard being hit; it's extremely consistent. Now whenever I get Rolex in that position, unless he can somehow throw a 'nade to cover himself, he just releases the upB early and C4's himself to avoid getting meteor'd.

Going in CSS order, what do We think about Wario,Mario and Luigi?

I think we beat Luigi fairly hard, possibly 60:40. Luigi predominately plays the ground game and we can dictate the pace with tilts, DA, and flamethrower. As long as we keep him a tilt's distance away, he can't do anything. It's obviously hard to combo him initially because of nair, but if you call him out on that, he's extremely easy to juggle and kill vertically. On top of that, we can still gimp him fairly easily by going out and hitting him out of his sideB (as long as you avoid getting misfired) or flamethrowering him when he gets close to the ledge.

So ever since 3.5's release I'm been getting demolished by this Lucario. It was gradual but now I'm finding myself getting juggled to death, the worst is when I get hit by 4-5 consecutive up-a's, like straight up 0 to 70 in a matter of seconds. Hella hard to come back from that.

Then he's got that side b he can combo into outside the stage which equals instant death. And even if he doesn't grab, the pulse will screw you over. The hit stun seems crazy to me.

So, I think this match-up is nowhere near 50-50 unless yal can tell me how to combat all that. I could very well not know how to counter Lucario properly but with the glide nerf, being a big target, and naturally juggle bait, it looks grim.

I pretty much have to go to Rob by the end of every first to 5 loss..... But it's just not the same if it ain't the lizard doing the bodying.

Nah, this MU really is pretty even. The thing is that Lucario actually has a hard time getting in. Outside of his DA, bair, and smashes, his moves don't actually have that much range or disjoint. Because of that, it's also hard for him to stop Zard from just nairing down when he's recovering. Just don't let him style on your shield and you should be fine. Lucario's kinda that optimal combo weight and falling speed that lets us obliterate him in one combo if given the chance. We do get combo'd pretty hard, but another problem of Lucario's is that he has Marth syndrome in that he actually has trouble killing heavies unless he can gimp them, combo them into the aerial command grab (which should never happen if you S/DI away from him), or hit them raw with a super.

 

[JOE!]

I've proven that FT is actually unsafe on hit, you probably shouldn't be using outside niche edge situations for damage...

Edit 1) I can def see the +1 vs ROB. Glide is also being fixed in 3.6

Edit 2) ironically, snake is one of those niche situations where flamethrower is really Good lol. Offstage it trolls him as he tries to Recover, blows up mines infinitely, and can mess up his ggrenade game royally.

My tests show still that at best FT is -16 on hit in neutral, so be weary.

Edit 3) To add to why we beat Luigi, we have the ability to shark super hard with speed and disjoint from below to keep him airborne, then I believe up b kills him around 90% guaranteed. Gotta check my chart lol

Lucario is def even


The MU chart on the OP has been shifted a bit

 

[AlmightySo]

9hammer~~~

 

[AlmightySo]

same level? I dont think so.
Face is great, but you really must not know what im capable of.

Face beat me in winners 3-2 then i 6-0d him in grands. Hes definitely not on the same level as zhime

 

[ELI-mination]

Its... not even close, either LOL

No offense to Face, he seems chill
...
Offense to Bubblequeen

 

[_Chrome]

What exactly makes Charizard win against Marth and lose against G&W?

 

[bubbaking]

Well, I don't think we actually win against Marth. It's just really close. We have similar ranges (on both attacks and grabs) and similar ground speeds. They can both edgeguard and juggle each other fairly well, too. However, Zard gets more survivability whereas Marth gets more disjoint, big low and mid % combos on Zard's huge frame, and more 'spammable' moves. Up close, it's a lot easier for Marth to SH double fair (and approach or retreat with the second fair, depending on whether the first one hit or not) or nair, but it's very awkward for Zard to do anything safely in that same position. A bit further out, Marth can zone with dtilt and maintain space, but Zard's tilts are so negative on block that the opponent can WD OoS to get closer or further away and mess with Zard's spacing.

Unrelated, but I just realized something regarding G&W. If his bucket is now normalized, then our flamethrower gives him a strong bucket instead of a really weak one now, right?

 

[JOE!]

Yeah, never use FT vs GW unless you randomly "brst fire" to bait the bucket or some weirdness

 

[steelguttey]

zard olimar is about 55-45 in your favor. pikmin throw just ****s on zards life because of how much lag zard has on his options for taking off pikmin. zards disjoints still **** on olimar though

 

[bubbaking]

Nah, it's worse than that, IMO. Pikmin aren't that annoying when Zard weighs a ton and all of his disjointed moves beat out most Pikmin attacks anyway. That and the ease with which Oli is edgeguarded makes it pretty bad for him.

 

[bubbaking]

I have a nagging feeling about our MU with ICs. Admittedly, I have almost no experience in that MU (I played it for one game of a MM against Phresh, and though I won the set, I was 2-stocked in that Zard:ICs game), but I think I was able to pinpoint some really problematic areas for us. Upon talking with Phresh and Boiko about it later, the general consensus was that Zard loses to ICs. Naturally, this conflicts with what's listed in the OP, so I decided to head on over to the ICs boards to see what they thought of the MU. Here's a Hylian quote about the MU in 3.5:

: 40/60 IC's love big characters, the chaingrabs are easy, 0-deaths come naturally, juggling is great, charizards huge hitboxes and great punish game help him a lot however.

I have to say I agree with this analysis, especially now that nair camping doesn't help us much anymore. Whenever I went on a plat, I had to constantly worry about desynched uairs, and after getting juggled, being KO'd by upB was a real fear.

Edit: I just realized the incredible irony of a Charizard being afraid of being killed by upB after being juggled.

 

[metroid1117]

Hey guys, I've been trying to get my Charizard back in action recently. I'm still really bad against Ripple's D3 though, we recorded a bunch of matches and I think I won about 3 of them lol. The video is provided below along with the timestamps for the D3 matches. I've also included any other Charizard matches I played.

In summary though, I think my biggest problem is figuring out how to get down against D3 - I find it really difficult since Charizard has only 2 jumps and nothing really to protect himself from below except early NAir (which is easily telegraphed), whereas D3 has 3 jumps and huge disjoints on UAir and FAir. I also find it difficult to combo D3, I'm not really sure what's the best thing to do after I get a grab and my back is to the edge (BThrow will send him onto the edge and DThrow techchases aren't reliable enough for me since my reaction times suck). It doesn't help that on the ground, D3 can pester you with FTilt/side+B while in the air, he can protect himself pretty efficiently with DAir. Any tips or advice would be appreciated, I think I'm 0-5 against him in tournament sets now >.>.

https://youtu.be/OvjmgpO26cw

0:07:44-0:12:39 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (D3)
0:12:48-0:16:12 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (D3)
0:16:13-0:21:23 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (D3)
0:21:24-0:25:15 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (D3)
0:25:16-0:28:31 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (D3)
0:28:32-0:32:53 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (D3)
1:13:09-1:16:31 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (D3)
1:16:51-1:20:22 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (D3)
1:20:33-1:24:23 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (D3)
1:25:14-1:28:00 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (D3)
1:28:13-1:32:49 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (D3)

0:32:54-0:35:50 - Tucks (ZSS) vs metroid (Charizard)
0:35:51-0:38:14 - Tucks (ZSS) vs metroid (Charizard)
2:05:53-2:08:53 - Milkmonster (Wario) vs metroid (Charizard)
2:09:04-2:12:37 - Milkmonster (Wario) vs metroid (Charizard)
2:12:45-2:15:00 - Milkmonster (Wario) vs metroid (Charizard)
2:40:00-2:43:56 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (ZSS)
2:44:02-2:45:56 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (ZSS)
2:46:09-2:48:49 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (ZSS)
2:48:54-2:54:06 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (ZSS)
2:54:30-2:57:34 - metroid (Charizard) vs Ripple (ZSS)
2:57:49-5:59:57 - Milkmonster (Wario) vs metroid (Charizard)
3:00:09-3:02:29 - Milkmonster (Wario) vs metroid (Charizard)
3:03:36-3:04:43 - Milkmonster (Wario) vs metroid (Charizard)
3:04:49-3:07:06 - Milkmonster (Wario) vs metroid (Charizard)
3:07:12-3:09:00 - Milkmonster (Wario) vs metroid (Charizard)
3:09:16-3:11:46 - Milkmonster (Wario) vs metroid (Charizard)
3:11:57-3:14:20 - Milkmonster (Wario) vs metroid (Charizard)

 

[bubbaking]

It's hard to get down on DDD. You have to mix up between preemptive nair and FF fair, which is pretty safe on block. Also mix up how many of your jumps you use up and how you land on platforms. Sometimes you have to glide for a plat after you've used up both jumps. I find this MU almost impossible on stages with few platforms (FD, PS2, and GHZ).

As for ftilt and Waddles, I feel that DDD's ftilt is negative enough on block that we can WD OoS and punish or at least gain a positional advantage. I don't actually know the frame data, but it just feels that way from shielding the move. We can DA, tilt, and jab through waddles. It's probably better if you do that to the initial Waddle Toss that can be reacted to so the Waddle gets sent offstage before he can use it again for the much faster Waddle Dash.

As for throws, I really think you should just improve your dthrow tech-chase ability. Even if DDD techs successfully, his options aren't that great. He has, like, a 7 frame jab (might be slower), a pretty crappy spot-dodge (at least compared to our spot-dodge), and a slow f-roll. His best option is probably his b-roll. All things considered, you should be able to get decent punishes off dthrow.

I may watch one of your matches later, but I'm gonna sleep first... (-_-)

 

[bubbaking]

So, I'm talking to an Oli from my region who also happens to be organizing the Oli MU chart. According to him, the Olis believe the Zard MU is even. We have it listed as +2 for us (a value I wholeheartedly agree with), which makes it one of our best MUs. Any possible reason for this huge disconnect between these respective playerbases? I know this MU is barely played...

Basically, why is Zard:Oli so good for us and why might Olimar players think it isn't?

 

[eideeiit]

a scrub's take on why Olimars may think Charizard is ok for them:

-What's Zard's best neutral tool? His dash dance (right?), which is pretty much made redundant by pikmin toss.
-No moves to shake off latched on pikmins.
-Upair for dayz?
-Effective edgeguards?
-Other things I haven't even heard of?

I personally play neither character, but I have to say from my point of view the Olimars seem to be closer to the truth here.

As for the reason for this massive difference in opinion, there aren't many Olimars and even less good or even acceptable ones. As such it's easy to dismiss Olimar as an all over ****ty character due to his broken recovery and less than stellar attributes all around and not take into account the few incredible tools he does have.

 

[bubbaking]

That does make sense (except for the edgeguarding part; Olimar can't really stop us from recovering easily). However, I would think that our ability to kill Olimar offstage at any % would be pretty overwhelming. If he can't go high, we can just flamethrower his upB twice and call it a day. Also, that huge range differential and the fact that our weight lets us tolerate Pikmin a little.

Any other opinions?

 

[JOE!]

Something I've been noticing a lot is that Zard has quite a high damage output combined with his speed and combo game (relevant to Olimar in a sec). His tilts usually will hit for 12% and lead into aerials that deal a minimum of 10% (tail fire on nair's forward and backswing) and a max of 17% with Dair, 16% with Fair's, and so on. It can be ganon-esque in how you can make trades or simply swing momentum back with a few hits to cover an opponent that landed twice as many for the same damage. With Pikmin Toss, sure it does passive damage but unless its a white you can use the opportunity to rush him when he has fewer pikmin and easily make up the % difference with a few moves since unlike Fox, IIRC, Oli can't act nigh instantly from his form of "passive damage" and eventually runs out of it.

 

[eideeiit]

Oli can SH pikmintoss waveland.

 

[steelguttey]

Something I've been noticing a lot is that Zard has quite a high damage output combined with his speed and combo game (relevant to Olimar in a sec). His tilts usually will hit for 12% and lead into aerials that deal a minimum of 10% (tail fire on nair's forward and backswing) and a max of 17% with Dair, 16% with Fair's, and so on. It can be ganon-esque in how you can make trades or simply swing momentum back with a few hits to cover an opponent that landed twice as many for the same damage. With Pikmin Toss, sure it does passive damage but unless its a white you can use the opportunity to rush him when he has fewer pikmin and easily make up the % difference with a few moves since unlike Fox, IIRC, Oli can't act nigh instantly from his form of "passive damage" and eventually runs out of it.

see, olimar players will always follow a rule that is the opponent will attack, whether its attacking you or just trying to get a pikmin off, when a pikmin is on them. you can try to ignore them, but we know youre just going to rush us down and we are completely ready for that. we have ways of dealing with pressure, better than most characters, like pivot grab, pivot fsmash, oos usmash, and oos nair. if an olimar player has a pikmin on you, hes going to start dash dancing and waiting for you to approach, because thats what we want you to do. we dont worry about that pikmin, because we play a high risk high reward game. thats olimar in general, he plays high risk high reward. and pikmin toss in the air can be wavelanded forwards and backwards so its safe unless you are right next to me, similar to fox.

 

[bubbaking]

Pivot fsmash and pivot grab are good for sure but I'm not sure if those count as great anti-pressure options as opposed to defensive mix ups and/or zoning options. I also don't think that OoS usmash and OoS nair will actually be that good against our spaced moves. However, we've talked enough about this MU on FB, so I guess I should just wait for some of the other Zards to reply. What do you think, @ metroid1117 ?

 

[metroid1117]

I've never played against any Olimar with Charizard (let alone a good one), so I can't comment on the match-up lol.

 

[bubbaking]

Weeelp, Steelguttey and I played last Saturday and the match ended up being a lot closer than I thought it would be. I guess I could see this MU being a bit closer to even, although if there is an edge, I'd still definitely give it to Zard. Honestly, once Zard gets Olimar in the air, there's no getting down for him. His only options are to guess right with the air-dodge mix-up or hope that he can clip him with some aerial. Also, between flamethrower and just grabbing the edge to f/dair the forced tetherhop, Olimar's pretty much toast if he has to recover low. That being said, the damage actually does accumulate on us really fast, and we also get edgeguarded.

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

Any keen insight on the Sheik MU?

 

[Life]

Any keen insight on the Sheik MU?

I actually just played this matchup on stream last weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_2AwKuDH3Y

My opponent and I have been playing each other for some time. I know his Sheik somewhat better than he knows my Zard, since I've usually gone Squirtle against him historically (he finally buckled down and learned that matchup in recent months, and coupled with losses on that character to a few other players I've historically outplaced I felt like the time was right to work on other characters, so I went mostly Zard this tournament). That said, I don't think either of us have a particularly advanced handle on this matchup specifically. Nevertheless, maybe you'll still get something out of watching this. I think a lot of my mistakes in this set were super obvious.

Both characters can punish each other very hard, both in terms of combos and edgeguarding. Overall, Sheik tends to do the things Zard does just a bit better than Zard does, which is why it seems good for Sheik. I think a Ganon-esque style of using short burst movement to bait out aggression from Sheik is probably the way to go here.

 

[bubbaking]

I think this MU is pretty bad for us. It was already a bit in Sheik's favor in 3.0, but back then I was able to beat Kel's and Hat's Sheiks with healthy amounts of nairs and hard punishes. Now that nair is a fair move, I don't think this MU is lookin' too hot. Sheik's bthrow > tipper usmash kills us at 100, which is devastating. @ Life is right in saying that both chars combo and edgeguard each other hard, but Sheik devastates us in the CQC department and she can camp us or at least make approaching hard with needles. Also, our worse recovery means easier edgeguards for Sheik.

 

[Life]

On the bright side, we can CC punish a lot of Sheik's stuff pretty well, a grab almost guarantees that Sheik will at least be cornered (I'd rather abuse positional advantage against her than try to dthrow techchase her absurd techrolls), and we have a pretty crucial reach advantage (can just jab her if she tries to SH fair approach for instance). So it's far from hopelessly difficult.

Generally whoever has stage control wins the match, I think.

 

[JOE!]

Its kind of funny, we out range and actually are faster than sheik on the ground and have the means to really mess with her offstage cus tail. I think shiek has the edge but I dont see it being too bad.

 

[apollosol]

Got a Lucario that can literally kill me at 20% by just pressuring with 'A' normals into side-b, into aerial side b spiking me instantly. I can't recover fast enough and if he decides he wants to spike me on stage, he either punished my ****ty roll or starts that side-b BS again. What do?

What can I do to avoid those side-b shannigans? It's too ****in free on me for me to respect it. I'm relegated to poking with mostly side A for the first 50% or so.

 

[metroid1117]

Got a Lucario that can literally kill me at 20% by just pressuring with 'A' normals into side-b, into aerial side b spiking me instantly. I can't recover fast enough and if he decides he wants to spike me on stage, he either punished my ****ty roll or starts that side-b BS again. What do?

What can I do to avoid those side-b shannigans? It's too ****in free on me for me to respect it. I'm relegated to poking with mostly side A for the first 50% or so.

If you're on the ground, shield or CC his tilts and buffer rolls once you start getting hit. However, the best way to avoid getting hit is to position yourself just outside dash attack range and short-hop NAir (don't fastfall) to cover the potential down+B cross-up. You might find this set against Double to be a helpful reference.

 

[Downdraft]

Hello, I plan to write a Charizard matchup summary tomorrow for the Zelda Matchup anthology, and I'd like some advice. Unfortunately, there is no footage of top level Charizard v. Zelda footage in the 3.5 redux thread, so I lack a video that would be useful for matchup guidance. I haven't played the matchup in a while and could agree that the matchup was even in 3.5, not sure about 3.6 Beta. What are some tips for Zelda? Thanks.

 

[Dingo1011]

Hello, I plan to write a Charizard matchup summary tomorrow for the Zelda Matchup anthology, and I'd like some advice. Unfortunately, there is no footage of top level Charizard v. Zelda footage in the 3.5 redux thread, so I lack a video that would be useful for matchup guidance. I haven't played the matchup in a while and could agree that the matchup was even in 3.5, not sure about 3.6 Beta. What are some tips for Zelda? Thanks.

Zard:Zelda from my experiences is really easy. She can't do much against nair, her tech is not that great so tech chasing is easier reaction based against her, and she has to set up dins fire most of the time. Just stay a nair tipper away from her at almost all times and grab her a few times (b throw or d throw depending on your play style, but I prefer b throw). If you get grabbed, she will most likely d throw you and just di away unless she set up a dins fire perfectly and mix up your tech roll because if you tech away, she can utilize up b shenanigans. She will attempt to catch you off guard with fairs or bairs so be careful of those and if you're high up, she'll attempt to uair but for the most part you can glide straight over it and punish her. If she's offstage, just go for the kill because she can't really stop you and you can recovery from almost anywhere. Overall you out space her, you have better mobility, better kill power, better grab game, and her projectile is not a major threat.

 

[bubbaking]

Some of that may have been true back in, like, 3.0, but this is largely inaccurate. Zelda only can't do anything about nair if you space the late hit perfectly. If you hit her shield with any other part, even spaced, you will eat a nair combo starter or a kick. In fact, a lot of our stuff is punishable by kicks. Also, Zelda's throws are a true DI mix-up. Fthrow is fast and if you tried to DI for dthrow, you will eat a kick. It's also hard to edgeguard her because, on top of all the angles and distances she can choose, Zelda's teleport explosion is actually very awkward for Zard to deal with. It will flat-out beat everything that isn't very disjointed (which we don't have much of), fsmash, or a slightly charged dsmash. Also, something else that is extremely dumb about Zelda's teleport (and I'm wondering if the PMDT is even aware of it) is that Zelda can cancel her aerial teleport on the stage to get the no-lag landing. Basically, we could go for the ledgehog to force Zelda onstage and then, in an instant, end up as the ones being edgeguarded. On top of all this, we don't even have better kill power than her, not even close, and she racks up damage way faster than us as well.

I play against a high-level Zelda regularly (we both just got PR'd for NY/NJ, actually), but I stopped going Zard for this MU because of all the dumb shenanigans that ensue. IMO, this MU hasn't been in our favor since 3.0. If you'd like to see my former thoughts on the 3.5 Zelda MU, check out this post:

I also think we lose to Zelda 45:55 (at least). We are liable to be shieldpoked by nearly everything Zelda does, and she can kill Zard ridiculously early. Also, her kicks have the range and speed to make most of our moves extremely unsafe on her shield. Apparently, there's some kind of glitch that lets people tech our uthrow (has happened to me multiple times already), so uthrow is not even a reliable kill option. Disarming her Din's Fire is awkward for Zard, and if she gets that and a teleport in, it's curtains for us. I've done some testing and Farore's Wind's explosion clanks with or beats out all of Zard's ground moveset barring his fsmash and semi-charged dsmash (uncharged just clanks). Up close, we kinda just lose. Between safe smashes on our shield and a throw mix-up that can get us kickilled, she has the edge in CQC. We used to be able to match her in the recovery and edgeguard departments, but not any more. Edgeguard-wise, it's really hard to force Zelda into a position where she does not have multiple options (really, why is it OK for a character to have an omnidirectional teleport with controlled length and a strong hitbox at the end all while she's recovering?), and she can always just teleport on top of Zard. We still have the juggling edge on Zelda, so if we can bthrow or usmash her, then we can get something going, but no extensive combos unless you like being kicked.

As a quality check statement, I play with a high-level Zelda (Face) very regularly. IMO, Face is on the same level as Zhime and he has some high-profile wins (Poob, Almighty, Malachi, etc.) under his belt. We go back and forth a lot and this is one MU we've played a ton.

3.6 Beta makes things a bit more bearable because our 'king has returned' glide allows us to dodge her fireball and recover a bit easier, and I hear the uthrow tech glitch has been removed, so we can get our guaranteed high % kills off of grab again. Regardless, this still looks like a bad MU for us, and Sheilda is still a problem we also have to consider.

 

[JOE!]

So, 3.6 came with a ton of changes to the roster, how do we feel about certain characters now?

I haven't played DDD much at all since Ripple was in town but that seemed OK then granted the lack of experience. DDD is worse off now, think he'd be even?